Gleaner Editors' Forum | JTA hopeful PEP concerns will be addressed

Garth Anderson, president of the Jamaica Teachers' Association, gives the assurance that his association will support the new Primary Exit Profile exams.

President of the Jamaica Teachers' Association (JTA) Garth Anderson has asserted that the association is not trying to stall the introduction of the Primary Exit Profile (PEP), despite raising concerns about its implementation before the start of the school year.

The JTA head told The Gleaner that the association has been invited by the education ministry to sit on a PEP review committee.

Speaking at a Gleaner Editors' Forum yesterday at the newspaper's North Street offices in Kingston, Anderson said: "We are not in any way trying to kill the programme or derail the programme. We have pointed out some concerns in the hope that they will be corrected to make the programme better because we believe that the NSC (National Standards Curriculum) and PEP are here to stay."

Anderson said that the JTA supports the PEP, citing a number of reasons.

"It's a good curriculum. We support what it stands for (in terms of) critical thinking and giving our students skills that are portable. We don't have an issue with that," the JTA president explained.

Consequently, Anderson has pledged his association's commitment to working alongside the education ministry to ensure the success of the programme.

"We committed ourselves to working with the Ministry of Education in the best interest of our students because our concern was primarily with the students in grade six."

He argued that the students did not get sufficient practice and teachers were concerned about the results of the PEP mock exam that the grade six cohort sat when they were in grade five.